Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/82

 JO The Holi: a Vc7nial Festival of the Hindus.

This leads us to the sexual conflict which occurs at the festival. I have elsewhere quoted the account of the custom at Mathura by Mr. F. S. Growse.^^ Captain G. R. Hearne writes: — "At the other Jat villages in the northern part of the Mathura district, Jan and Bathen, a peculiar game is played about the time of the Holi. The men arm them- selves with branches of trees and form a ring, while the women with stout lathis or staves, and with saris [sheets] drawn over their faces, fiercely assault the ring and break it, soundly belabouring the men. Separate rings are formed by the Jats and by the Chamars [curriers] or low castes- Finally they return to the village in pairs, the manchanting a song, and the woman, when he has finished, driving him on a few paces." He notes that, it is curious that the Jats, supposed to be " Indo-Aryans," perform this rite. It is, however, now certain that the Jats are descended from Scythians or Huns, who invaded Northern India. The rite was either introduced from abroad, or more probably is borrowed from the so-called " Dravidians." ^^

Among the Gonds and other forest tribes of the Cen- tral Provinces, who have what is called by Hindustani- speaking observers " the breaking of the sugar ball " {gur tutnd) performed about the time of the Holi, " a stout pole, some twelve or fifteen feet high, is set up, and a lump of gur [coarse sugar from which the treacle has not been removed], with a rupee in it, placed on the top, and round it the Gond women . . . take their stand, each with a little green tamarind rod in her hands. The men collect out- side, and each has a kind of shield, made of two parallel sticks joined by a cross-piece held in the hand, to protect themselves from the blows. They make a rush together, and one of them swarms up the pole, the women all the time plying their tamarind rods vigorously ; and it is no child's play, as the men's backs attest the next day. When

^^ Popular Religion and Folklore of Norther7i India (1896), vol. ii., p. 316. ^^ Man, vol. v. (1905), p. 155.